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Create magical portraits using just one umbrella with these 5 different set ups

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It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with options when you first get started on artificial lighting. There seem to be so many tutorials out there for four or five light setups. But many of us begin shooting with natural light, and often from a single light source (ie. a window). It stands to reason then, that the easiest way to learn to shoot strobes is to begin with just one light.

In this video, photographer Emily Teague shows us five different setups using just one umbrella light. There’s no shame in only using one light if you know what you’re doing to manipulate it. Often the results are incredibly beautiful, and if you’re on location there’s something to be said for bringing less gear with you!

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How to shoot a clean and simple coloured fill portrait in the studio

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Sometimes you just want a clean and quick setup to start a shoot off the right way. Sure, you may have a ton of creative ideas in store for later on in the day, but they may be new ideas you’ve never tried before or they may be more experimental. If that’s the case, I always find it smart to start a shoot with a tried and true setup that’s not too tricky to do, quick to set up and provides great shots each and every time.

That way, the team knows that whatever happens from here on out with the more experimental work, we’ve already bagged some killer images and everybody is positive about the setups to come.

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The Intersect tool in Lightroom: the ‘secret’ masking tool you definitely need to start using

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It’s no secret that Adobe Lightroom has become an incredibly powerful standalone photo editor in its own right over the last few updates. Often, I don’t feel the need to edit in Photoshop at all these days. One of the major updates has of course been the improvements in AI and the masking options. There are several to choose from now, but what happens if those don’t quite suit exactly what you want to do?

In this video, Nigel Danson walks us through using the Intersect option when masking. Essentially, this allows you to use a combination of two masks at the same time to better achieve the effects you want. So what is this “secret” tool and how will it benefit us?

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Deliberate practice will make you a better photographer, here’s how

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Practice makes perfect, or so the old saying goes. That’s not actually correct as I’ll explain later, however. But generally, if you want to get better at doing anything, from improving your golf swing to nailing that karaoke rendition of Whitney Houston, you’re going to have to practice.

In this video from photographer Ben Harvey, he talks about getting outside more so that you can practice with greater motivation and productivity.

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How to turn any boring office space into an interesting background

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Many of us have been there. You get a call to go and photograph or film some people in an office somewhere. You prepare with all sorts of cool ideas, maybe we could shoot in the lobby, or the roof garden you think. But no, when you arrive you’re shown to a smallish conference room with a massive table in the middle and beige walls. How are you going to make this look cool?

Well don’t worry, there are a few tricks you can use to pimp up even the blandest of offices. In this video from Epic Light Media you’ll discover how.

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How to shoot and edit professional interior photography

Shooting interiors can be a lot of fun but also an extremely difficult challenge. Most rooms aren’t designed to be photographed. They’re often laid out all wrong for it, there’s stuff in the way of the shot, the colours and patterns don’t really match and it can be tricky to find the right angle to shoot from. Even if all those things do fall into line, interior lighting isn’t usually geared toward photography. It’s designed to light the space for people within it.

There are some things over which you don’t have much control when photographing a room but there are plenty of things that you do. In this video from Becki and Chris, we learn a variety of tips and techniques that allow us to shoot interiors that we can be pleased with. Everything is covered from the gear to the composition with lots of great advice in between.

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Portrait shooters, stop being so afraid of midday sun – It’s easy to overcome with a little bit of flash

Shooting outdoors in the bright midday sun scares the pants off a lot of portrait photographers. And for good reason. The harsh midday light when the sun’s high in the sky isn’t particularly flattering. Unless you go into open shade (and even that’s not always a guarantee), there’s really no way you can position yourself and your subject that the sun is presenting flattering light on your subject.

But it doesn’t need to be so bad and you don’t need to actively avoid it, as Jiggle Alejandrino points out in this video. He loves shooting outdoor portraits in the midday sun (and, so do I!) and explains why he loves it and how he overcomes the challenges of shooting at this time of day using flash.

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Confused by colour grading? Watch this complete guide to the basic concepts and tools

Dealing with colour in video is a two-part process. First, you’ve got colour correction. This is the process where you tweak your footage to get things as accurate to real life as you can. It’s also used to match footage shot with multiple cameras to give them all the same standard starting point for the second part of the process, which is colour grading. This is giving the footage your own creative aesthetic spin.

We grade to impart mood or feeling into our sequences. It’s a visual aid to help guide the viewer and put them in the mindset we want them to have while watching. And sometimes it’s just because they look cool. Whatever you’re reasons for doing it, if you’ve never done it before, it can feel a little intimidating, so the guys at Film Riot put together this “Color Grading 101” video to teach you all of the basic concepts of grading.

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10 tips for filming miniatures to make them look larger than life to the camera

Miniatures have been a part of filmmaking pretty much since filmmaking began. They’re typically used when building a full-sized set or prop would be impractical or just flat out impossible. Sometimes they’re used to create forced perspective shots to make a miniature look like it’s part of the real world or to be able to blow something up that they couldn’t blow up in real life or to create something that could just never really exist in the real world.

Whatever your reasons for using them, they’re a lot of fun and can be very effective when done right. But how do you do them right? Well, you can start by watching this video from Steve Ramsden where he goes over his top 10 filmmaking tips for filming miniatures to make them look (and act) like they’re a part of the full-sized real world.

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How to take classical musician portraits that rock

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If you shoot portraits at all I can almost guarantee that you’ll get asked at some point by a musician to have some images taken. Whether you’re a professional or an amateur it doesn’t seem to matter. Musicians are generally hungry for photographs and need a constant carousel of images for their publicity and social media.

However, it’s not always that straightforward to take a great shot of a musician. And generally, they don’t just need action shots of them playing, they need a mixture of headshots, shots with the instrument, full-body shots, atmospheric shots, and often shots that would work on an album cover, even in today’s age of digital music downloads.

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